THE INFLECTIONAL ASPECT OF THE POLISH CATEGORY OF GENDER

On the basis of almost complete lexical material, the authoress constructs a pattern of the inflectional system of Polish nouns profiled by the category of gender. First of all, she determines gender classes of nouns separately for each the numbers: singular and plural (four classes for singular and five for plural). Then, she superimposes plural classes on classes determined for singular. This operation is based exclusively on hierarchical inflectional criteria; these falsify widespread claims of impossibility of determining gender classes with the aid of inflectional methods. The authoress builds the inflectional system on the basis of gender-marked forms of the noun (genitive, accusative, nominative) because in her opinion other word forms (cases) substantiate neutralization of the examined grammar category. Nouns which have non-inflectional category of number, belonging to the group of 'pluralia tantum', are treated in the same way as other nouns with gender profile in plural. She settles the controversial issue of gender qualification of pluralia ending on -i/-y in genitive plural by appealing to the opposition of endings of soft/hard consonant stems, determining the choice of particular inflectional endings. The gender of non-inflectional lexemes and acronyms has been described on the basis of strictly determined criteria, mostly inflectional ones, which apply to particular subgroups of units. As a result, superimposing of plural gender classes on singular ones, as well as motivated reduction of classes, allows the authoress to present five separate inflectional gender classes of the Polish noun. They underlie the same number of paradigm classes as those determined by the opposition of soft/hard consonant stems as well as by nominative singular endings.